General Electric is in the process of designing and planning to build a massive sea water desalination plant in Johannesburg, South Africa. The plant is projected to produce 70,000 cubic meters of fresh water every single day. ( You can read the press release on their website here: http://www.genewscenter.com/Co ntent/Detail.asp?ReleaseID=239 5&NewsAreaID=2&MenuSearchCateg oryID= ) The project is slated to cost $220 million, and it's actual purpose is not even to produce water, but to reclaim the salt (at least according to the wording in the press release), for use in purifying and processing chlorine.

The by-product (fresh, potable water) will be used to supply water to the inhabitants of the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Municipality (about 150,000 people). This is a good thing, and I don't want to sound like I'm complaining about the project. I think it's well within the rights of both GE, and their customer (Strait Chemicals, for which I could not find a web address) to make a profit, and it is well within GE's rights to use the "by-product" as they see fit. If they donate it, or sell it, or dump it back into the ocean (assuming of course it really is pure water), that is, quite literally, their business.

Now, I am not complaining at all about this project. I am, however, wondering about something. If we lived in a Utopian society where money was irrelevant, or even non-existent, what else could be done with this technology. Take, for example, starvation in places like Ethiopia. Several years ago, the late-comedian Sam Kinison made a joke (perhaps in poor taste, admittedly) where he asked, why are we sending these people food? They live in the desert. Send them U-Hauls.

Of course, he was joking. We can't simply relocate half of the population of an entire country. Then again, the best comedy is supposed to be rooted in some truth, right?

Okay, so combine that thought with this one: We want to research what it would take to terraform and settle other planets. Mars, the Moon, planets not yet discovered...

Hmmm....

So, what would happen if we (okay, by "we" I mean GE) built one of these plants near Ethiopia. It would actually have to be somewhere nearby, such as Somalia, as Ethiopia is not coastal, but the pipelines to run the water would be shorter and less complex than the Alaskan pipeline, or most other oil pipelines, for that matter. Of course there is no profit in this, unless of course Strait (or some other firm) was to

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